


Panic!

by Chalichi



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms
Genre: Claustrophobia, Comforting Daryl Dixon, Light fat shaming, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9844319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chalichi/pseuds/Chalichi
Summary: Jesus suffers a panic attack caused by claustrophobia on a run and Daryl comforts him through it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short story about Daryl comforting Jesus when he has a panic attack. 
> 
> I wanted to take a short break from the longer story I'm writing and got this idea from listening to Linkin Parks Crawling. 
> 
> Hope you'll like this short story.

Jesus was in the kitchen of the abandoned house he'd been searching through when he heard the front door swing open followed by several loud footsteps and voices of men he didn't recognize.   
He eyed a cabinet next to the refrigerator that looked big enough for him to hide in and snook into it as soundless as possible, taking the key out of the cabinet door – just in case – and prayed to any God left in their broken world that he wouldn't be discovered.

As he heard the voices getting closer he drew a sigh of relief, they hadn't seen him, as well as cursed under his breath.   
Why the hell had he and Daryl decided to split up for this run?   
Daryl was in the house next door and was expecting Jesus to meet up with him outside by the car when he was done scavenging his house. 

He left the door partly open, just letting in a sliver of light into the otherwise dark cabinet.  
He saw three men in the kitchen, but was certain that there was more of them that he couldn't see.   
All of them were armed with guns, which told him that their either was a part of Negans search party or another group that had managed to keep themselves out of Negans radar. 

“Look at this!” A voice from right outside the cabinet door said. Jesus tensed, thinking he'd been discovered.   
“Look at the size of this ugly hag! I bet her hubby couldn't find a position to fuck her right anymore!” 

Jesus relaxed a little, the man had just found the picture of what Jesus though was the former owner of the house.   
It was a woman of the larger size, but Jesus thought it was just tasteless to shame the poor woman like that, dead or alive that didn't matter. 

“Nah, I bet she was to busy eating to even know how a cock worked!” Came another voice.

“That might just be why there's no food left here.” Came a third voice followed by a light slam of a empty can being thrown to the floor.   
“I bet her last thought was to make dinner as her neighbors woke up from the dead.” 

Jesus felt more and more sick to his stomach at their disgusting comments of the former owner.   
He really wanted to jump out of the cabinet and punch their lights out even if he was outnumbered, and he was just about to when he heard the click as the door of the cabinet he was hiding in was shut close and he was left in darkness.   
One of the men had apparently leaned on the door successfully closing it.   
Jesus didn't dare to move or even breathe. 

“The hell?” The man outside the cabinet said. 

“You didn't check that cabinet?” Another voice said, getting closer to where Jesus were hiding.

“No. And now it won't open.” The first man said, tugging a little on the door.  
“The key is gone! Should we shoot it open?”

Jesus felt his heart speed up alarmingly, he knew that if they stated shooting that A: he would be discovered and most likely get killed afterwards or B: he would die by the bullets. Neither of which was that appealing. 

“Nah, leave it. Don't want to drag to many of the dead over here. Besides, we got what we came for.” Came the second mans voice, getting further away from Jesus hiding spot.   
“Now, let's get the hell away from here.” 

As he heard the sound of the men walk out of the kitchen and then out of the house he let out the breath he had been holding.   
Once he was sure the men was gone he tried to push the door open, it didn't bulge!   
He turned his flashlight on and tried to fiddle a little with the lock of the door only to find out it had rusted to much, sealing it shut.   
He tried to bang at the door with his foot, hoping to break it down. It didn't. 

Jesus felt his breath speed up as panic started to grab hold of him.   
He tried to push it down and focus on getting the fucking door open.  
He drew out his knife and put his flashlight in his mouth, trying to scrape the worst of the rust off of the lock mechanism. 

He sat there for a good half hour, only managing to cut himself in his fingers a few times and had to stop altogether in fear of severe blood loss if he kept it up.   
The raging panic that had been building up inside of him made his head fussy and strange, making it difficult for him to focus at he was doing.   
On top of it all he felt incredibly stupid for managing to get himself locked inside a small space, especially when he knew what crammed places did to him. 

He started to wonder here Daryl was at. It was way past their meeting time. Weren't he supposed to look for him by now?   
He knew he would if Daryl was the one missing the time limit.   
Then he thought about what the men had said, about they having what they came for.   
What if Daryl was what they'd come for?   
What if Daryl had been taken away, or worse, what if he'd been killed!  
If that had happened Jesus would have to rot in there!   
No one in Daryl's family knew where he was, he would slowly die in there and then turn into a walking corpse inside of a small cabinet in a ugly kitchen! 

There was no stopping the panic attack that surged through his body that time.   
He started to feel light headed as he started to hyperventilate, the walls in the tiny space seemed to get impossibly closer to him.   
He couldn't breathe!   
It felt as he was slowly suffocating.   
He put out his shaking hands on the walls next to him to ground himself a little, it did little to help, but it was something. 

A loud bang of the front dirt being slammed open interrupted his panicked thoughts. 

“Paul?! Ya in here?” Came Daryl's voice not to far from the kitchen. 

Jesus couldn't talk, there wasn't enough air in his lungs to form any words.   
He responded by kicking weakly at the door and hoped that Daryl would follow the sound. 

“Paul? S’ that you?” Daryl asked, his voice coming from just outside the cabinet door. 

Paul kicked once more, hoping that Daryl would get it. 

Paul could see the door moving slightly as Daryl tugged at the door and then stopped. 

“Hold on!” Daryl said, followed by hurried footsteps leaving the kitchen.   
No! Don't leave me! He wanted to yell after him, but couldn't. 

After what felt like hours Daryl came back again. 

“I need ya to step as far away from the door as ya can, ya hear me? Kick on the door once if ya hear me.” 

Jesus kicked at the door and dragged his limp body further into the tiny space, dragging his legs up to his chin, folding his arms around them and began rocking back and forth slightly. 

He heard the door protesting while it slowly got bent loose of its hinges as well as Daryl's muffled cursing.   
Daryl paused every now and then, probably to get a better grip of whatever tool he used to get the door open.   
After a few minutes Daryl started to pound on the door and a few cracking noises could be heard when the door finally lost its battle and fell to the floor with a loud crash. 

“That was a strong ass door!” Daryl huffed and bent down to examine the door more closely.   
“No kidding it was strong! There's a fucking iron plate in the middle of the fucking thing!” 

Daryl looked up when he noticed that Jesus hadn't moved an inch since the door had been removed. 

“Ya okay man?” He asked looking at the other man in concern. 

Jesus couldn't move, he couldn't talk and he couldn't for the life of him catch his breath!   
He felt shaky and cold all over. His skin felt itchy and strange, like a million bugs kept crawling under his skin. 

Daryl leaned in closer, studying him like he'd done with the door and jesus could see in his eyes when the realization dawned on him. 

“I'm going to reach out and grab your arms now ta help ya out of there okay? Try ta relax, m’ not going ta hurt ya.” Daryl said in a soft calm voice.   
Jesus didn't know Daryl could sound so calming and reassuring, it sounded nice.   
He wanted to tell him that, but he still couldn't get his mouth or lungs to work. 

Just as he'd said Daryl leaned in even closer into the already crammed space and grabbed hold of Jesus slack wrists, making him tense up a little at the contact, even though he was expecting it. 

“Try to relax, I'm going ta help ya outta here now.” He said in the same soft voice and slowly stated to pull Jesus out of the small cabinet. 

Jesus whimpered a little at the pull on his wrists but didn't complain otherwise.   
“I need to grab hold of yer hips now to be able to lift ya up.” Daryl said when he'd pulled Jesus all of the way out of the cabinet.   
He slowly let go of Jesus wrists and moved his hands just as slowly down to his hips. 

“Try ta put yer arms around my neck.” He said when he had a secure grip on Jesus hips.   
Jesus lifted his weak and shaky arms and put them around the older mans neck clumsily. 

“I'm going ta pull ya up now.” Daryl informed and started to pull Jesus up from the cabinet floor.   
After a few seconds he was standing upright and was pressed against Daryl's strong chest. 

“Yer okay now, yer safe.” Daryl murmured into Jesus hair. 

He felt safe being pressed tightly against the hunters chest with his strong arms around him, so that had to mean he was!   
He could feel his body slowly calming down, it started to get easier to breathe and his raging heart started to slow down its attempt to jump out off his chest. 

After a few more minutes of being pressed tightly against the taller man he had almost calmed down fully and started to back away from him.  
Daryl catched on fast and grasped Jesus upper arms to steady him, still being to weak to hold himself up fully. 

“What happened?” Daryl asked, looking sternly into Jesus eyes with his piercing blue ones. 

“I got locked in there. I have claustrophobia, so I panicked.” Jesus said with a slight slurred voice. 

“Yea, I got that. Why did ya get into the cabinet in the first place?”   
Right! Maybe Daryl had missed the men that had been inside the house! 

“Men came here. I hid inside the cabinet. One of them leaned on the door. It locked.” Was all Jesus managed to get out. His brain was fussy from the panic attack and his body was totally drained of energy. He felt ready to drop any minute. 

Daryl must've been aware of that, because right after Jesus had told him about the men he nodded and turned his head towards the stairs leading to the second floor. 

“We need ta get you to lie down, ya look exhausted.” He murmured.   
“Tell ya what, did ya check upstairs?”

Jesus to exhausted to give him a verbal response just gave him a quick nod of the head. 

“Good. Let's get ya to bed. There's a bedroom upstairs right?” 

Jesus nodded again.   
Then he let himself get dragged away by Daryl up the stairs.   
It wasn't easy, and he tripped a few times, ending up with Daryl almost carrying him up the rest of the way.   
Daryl didn't complain, still talking to him with that calm voice of his as he took most of the scouts weight on himself and helped him up the rest of the steps. 

Daryl eased Jesus onto the queen sized bed when they got into one of the bedrooms.   
The bed was dusty, but otherwise clean, with a large green bedspread on top of it. 

Once Daryl was content that Jesus wouldn't fall flat on his face from his seated position on the bed, he walked around the bed to remove the bedspread on the other side of the bed.   
He then helped Jesus to stand up and removed it altogether. 

Jesus head felt completely empty. He couldn't focus on anything that was going on around him, so Daryl's idea about him getting to bed now wasn't a bad idea. 

“Lie down.” Daryl ordered him when he'd pulled down the covers of the bed enough for him to be able to climb in. 

Jesus hadn't realized how cold he was until Daryl pulled the covers around him and he couldn't stop his shivering. 

“I'll stay here and take watch.” Daryl told him as he brushed away some strands of hair that had made it to Jesus trembling lips. 

“N-no” Jesus stuttered and grasped Daryl's wrist weakly with his shaking hand.   
“C-cold.” 

“Ya want me to lay down with ya?” Daryl asked with furrowed brows. 

Jesus nodded shakily and let go of his hold of the hunters arm as he began to climb into the bed and laid does next to him. 

Jesus moved in closer towards the hunters body heat instinctively and snuggled up against him.   
He felt Daryl tense up a little, but relaxed a few seconds later.   
He could feel Daryl move even closer towards him, then he felt the weight of Daryl's arm being placed around his waist. 

“Now sleep.” Daryl said in a hushed voice, his warm breath ghosting over Jesus forehead. 

It wouldn't take long for him to fall asleep, the added warmth from the older man was making it harder and harder for him to keep his eyes open. 

This is really nice.   
Was the last thought that passed through his fussy mind before he fell asleep.


End file.
